Sunday, March 18, 2012

Warm-up is highly recognized as an essential part of any sports activity. The aim of warm-up is to increase muscle-tendon
suppleness, stimulate peripheral blood flow, increase the temperature of the body, muscle tendon and connective tissue; and enhance free, coordinated
movement.

During endurance routes, performance is enhanced by a good warm-up, because it allows your body to deliver more oxygen to the muscles right from the start of the workout, and reduces the temporary oxygen debt (Hojoblou et al, 2005)Picture: Dani Andrada - Corazón de Ensueño, 8c FA; China. Photo by Sam Bie. Source: www.sambie.fr

However...The science about how to warm up is not well developed; we haven’t answered the big questions yet: about
whether to warm up or why to warm up (Fradkin et al, 2010)...

"Since you so easily entertain all my questions I will ask another seemingly unrelated question that I think in some strange way applies to your studies and training.

I have noticed that most programs mention warm-ups, but on the other hand there are a few notable climbers who seem to jump straight onto difficult boulders and routes with no apparent warm up. In fact (not sure if you know who he is but...) boon speed of pusher developed a hangboard years ago after noticing that he was stronger from doing short hard hangs randomly (sounds a lot like your training) with no real training warm up just throughout the day hang for a few seconds and go on with your day... which seemed to work for him in sending his 8c(+) route project. To make a short story long - is there any evidence that warm ups may or may not be necessary in this type of training? it seems very curious"

I ignore the exact methodology that Boone Speed used and its development as the sets went by (evolution in edge depth, EL or added weight), but let's suppose he didn't use Pavel Tsatsouline's method(He stated that if you want to get better at doing pull ups, you do more pull ups. But don't try and do 100 in a workout (setsxreps). Instead, you perform many sets of the same exercise over and over again spread along the whole day to improve performance on said exercise.What ends up happening is you end up doing 15 to 20 pull ups as many as 5-10 times a day); this would be effective when we are learning a new exercise or doing sustained climbing exercises in the gym... but not when we want to improve our maximum strength.

Instead we will suppose he did 2-3 sessions of 2-3 sets each; then:

I believe that probably the first few sets that Speed performed served him as a warmup, perhaps without him being conscious of it. Otherwise would mean he was following Pavel's, and so failing to achieve the potential benefits that he could have enjoyed by doing 3-5 sets in one session or 2-4 sets in two sessions.

It has been shown that greater scores in maximum strength and power are obtained when an appropriate warming-up protocol is followed, including the same exercise the training consists of, and several sets of submaximal loads with the same duration/reps as the training itself. Also, these acute positive effects are bigger for the stronger and/or more skilled athletes.

Moreover, the results obtained by Abad et al (2011), support the advisability of performing a moderate intensity general warm-up in addition to the specific warm-up before maximum strength tests/training. The general warm-up intends to raise muscle temperature, whereas the specific warm-up aims to increase neuromuscular activation.

Nonetheless, playing devil's advocate, I will add that for boulder problems that last for more than 1', power endurance routes or power training like campus board or dynos, "less is more", because it has been observed that too long a warming-up, or too intense and without enough rest period before the actual competition can impair performance, especially when the sport level is not very high. The reason is that those types of warming-up could cause significant fatigue and impair subsequent performance because of the reduction in high-energy phosphates, which are the key substrates for performance in those activities (Hashbullah et al, 2011, Mujika et al, 2011; Tomaras and MacIntosh, 2011).

Lastly, I find two aspects of the training you describe that are positive, and in fact are among the principles of the methodology I propose:

- Short hanging times ("a few seconds" as you recount, 3"-10'' for high level, 10"-15'' for medium and low level) and high intensity to increase maximum strength (getting neural effects but not hypertrophy).

- Complete rest periods between sets and several brief strength training sessions distributed along the day. According to the scientific literature we can optimally train our strength by doing sessions of no more than 45'-60' with a pause of 30' or more between them. By this I don't want to give the impression that it's better to do several dead hang sessions on the same day than just one session, it's not?
However, you can do a finger strength session in the morning, and a bouldering session in the evening.

Hashbullah et al (2010):Effects of different warm-up protocols and no warm up on speed performance among football players. Science and Social Research (CSSR), 2010 International Conference on Issue Date: 5-7 Dec

Very interesting post! I sometimes do some stretching as part of the warm up. But then I have heard that stretching decreases maximum power. Is there any science behind this, and should stretching be avoided before dead hangs?

Clearly it is an easier job (but still complicated) to quantify maximal strength gains versus climbing ability. Although ive never climbed in Spain I get the impression that many of the difficult sport routes are sustained, technical, and quite long in many cases. How would you transition from power training to implement your new found strength from the Transgression/Progression to hard sport routes? What im asking is - when do you apply climbing volume and how much is enough ( im assuming that a less is more approach still applies somehow)? You are an inspiration and im hoping to take your program and apply it over a year or two to see some real results! Thanks for all your work and willingness to share.